


you could be my favorite place

by margosfairyeye (Skittery)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Oral Sex, Roommates, Self-Esteem Issues, Sharing a Room, queliot week day 3: roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:10:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skittery/pseuds/margosfairyeye
Summary: Margo winced. “We’re all out of rooms.”“I thought you had extra space here.”“Space, yes, rooms, no.” Margo seemed to sense his mounting panic and put a reassuring hand against his cheek.  “Don’t worry, Q, we’re not going to throw you out.  Eliot has the biggest room in the house-” Of fucking course he does. “-so you’re just going to room with him for a while.”__ __Quentin is forced to share a room with Eliot, which would be fine if it wasn't for his giant crush.Queliot Week Day 3: roommates





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> minor content warning for canon (season 1) levels of Quentin's anxiety, self-esteem and mental health.
> 
> \- - 
> 
> huge thanks to [zade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade/pseuds/zade) for being the best beta

Quentin lugged his suitcases across the grass towards the Cottage, trying not to trip over them or his own feet, and hoping he had some latent telekinetic ability that would suddenly kick in and enable him to just float the bags towards the door.  Even if he could float only one of the bags, ideally the one filled with books, it would make his progression much quicker. And Quentin was eager to actually get inside the Cottage, now that he was supposed to live there, now that he had an actual place he was _supposed_ to be, even if it was just by default.  

“Quentin!”  Alice came hurrying up behind him, carrying two perfect, possibly monogrammed suitcases, one in each hand, like something straight out of The Sound of Music.

“Is that all your stuff?”  

Alice frowned and looked at her bags like she was just noticing them.  Quentin was starting to feel like he’d overpacked somehow, even though his stuff had been magically delivered when he’d appeared at Brakebills, so he hadn’t even had a choice about how extra he was going to appear.  

“No, this is my second trip,” Alice replied. “Do you need help?”

Quentin breathed out, suddenly less self-conscious. “Oh good.”  His palms were starting to get sweaty, which was only going to make holding onto the stupid plastic handle more difficult.  “I’ve—uh—got it.”

Alice shrugged and he followed her to the Cottage door, only stumbling a few more times and wondering why he hadn’t thought to take his own bags in two trips.  He knew, though, really. He hadn’t wanted the option to slip away—Oh, Quentin, we’re so sorry, but there’s actually no more room in the Cottage, guess you’ll just have to stay in the dorms, alone, since you haven’t actually got a recognizable skill anyway, oh well!—he couldn’t keep the echo of that fear out of his head until he was in his room, until he was past _sorry, Quentin, but_.

Margo met them at the door.  “Alice, you know where you’re going, right across from me.” She winked in a way that made Alice either very uncomfortable or very flustered.  “And you, Q, first of all, welcome.”

Quentin heaved his book-filled suitcase over the threshold, wishing he was panting slightly less from the exertion of carrying the bags.  “Thank you.”

“So there’s a small space issue, but don’t worry, it’s being worked on.”

Quentin felt his face fall. _Sorry, Quentin, but_. “What kind of issue?”

Margo winced. “We’re all out of rooms.”

Quentin could feel his panic starting to build.  Somehow Alice had gotten here earlier, while there were still rooms ( _why hadn’t he gotten here earlier; what was wrong with him that he couldn’t just carry his stupid bags faster; and what the fuck—hadn’t he been put here specifically because they had extra space?_ )  “I thought you had extra space here.”

“Space, yes, rooms, no.” Margo seemed to sense his mounting panic and put a reassuring hand against his cheek.  Her hand was cold and soft and firm and the slight pressure did admittedly make him feel a little bit better. “Don’t worry, Q, we’re not going to throw you out.  Eliot has the biggest room in the house-” _Of fucking course he does._ “-so you’re just going to room with him for a while.”

She said it like she was telling him that he’d have to change laundry detergent for a while due to a shortage, not that he’d have to be literally living in the same room as the hottest person Quentin had ever actually seen, much less spoken to. Quentin felt like the room was getting dimmer and wobbling a little bit, which was really not good because fainting was probably not an appropriate response to this.  He heard one of his bags clatter to the floor and realized he’d let go of the handle. The sound shocked him enough that his vision cleared, but even so. He had not prepared for this situation.

“S-sorry?” Maybe he had misheard her.

Margo rolled her eyes. “Get it together, Coldwater, it’s temporary.  We’ll figure out the mix-up and you’ll be on your own, just...put a sock on the door until then.”

Which brought up an extremely problematic eventuality of what he was going to do if he didn’t have the privacy of his own damn room to jerk off in every time Eliot did something especially Eliot-y, because his room was also Eliot’s room.  Quentin wished Margo would smirk just a little bit less at his discomfort.

“I’ll show you to the room,” Margo said, grabbing Quentin’s fallen bag and dragging it like it wasn’t stupidly heavy and unwieldy.  Great, so the only one who couldn’t handle his shit was Quentin. He was secretly glad Penny had been sent to live somewhere else, or he would never stop teasing Quentin about this.

Quentin followed Margo up the stairs and they stopped in front of a big, dark wooden door near the end of the hallway. Quentin could have wrung water out of his palms; if his heart beat any quicker it would probably flutter out of his chest entirely.  He tried to think calming, not what-does-Eliot-sleep-in-and-god-there-better-not-be-shared-bathrooms thoughts.

Margo knocked on the door and Quentin was getting hopeful that she’d just been fucking with him because Margo was mean and you could probably see his crush from space, when Eliot opened it and Quentin had to grip the wall for support.

Eliot was wearing nothing except a purple towel around his waist, his hair damp and hanging in strings around his face, small droplets of water cascading off his hair onto his bare chest.  Quentin tried not to stare at the chest, or the hair, or the towel, which was frankly not thick enough to be decent, and ended up just kind of focusing on the floor near Eliot’s feet.

“What’s up?” Eliot asked, sounding slightly uncertain and glaring wet daggers at Margo.

“I filled Quentin in on the situation,” Margo replied, ignoring Eliot’s tone completely, “so he knows he’ll be staying here with you for a bit.”

Eliot brushed a loose clump of hair out of his eyes and gave Margo a look that Quentin couldn’t quite read—he was starting to feel like he was a little kid again, when his parents would have silent arguments and he just had to stand there waiting for someone to acknowledge him again.  After a moment, Eliot moved out of the doorway and Margo beamed and led Quentin into the room.

It was, as advertised, huge.  Against the wall directly facing the door was a queen-sized bed covered in shiny sheets that looked almost wet, and with intricate metal head and foot boards; a desk perpendicular to the bed against a wall to their right that was entirely made of bright windows, covered with gauzy curtains that didn’t so much stop the light as give it a pleasant, hazy quality. There was clearly a bathroom attached to the bedroom, considering Eliot’s appearance and also the clean-smelling steam spilling languidly out of the slightly opened door on the left-side wall.

On the same wall as the door to the hall, opposite Eliot’s bed, was a twin bed, similar to what he’d had in the dorm, all particle board and old springs and a standard issue light blue mattress.  It paled in comparison to the rest of the furniture.

Margo dropped his bag next to the terrible bed and wiped her perfectly manicured hands together as if say, great, job well done.  Quentin could not think of any sentiment he possibly disagreed with more.

“Okay, have fun!” she quipped, prancing out of the room.  Oh, okay, so he definitely disagreed with that sentiment more.

Quentin rubbed the plastic suitcase handle between his fingers, trying to stare anywhere besides Eliot’s chest, or towel, or face ( _or_ _towel_ _ohmygod_ ) and failing miserably at all of the above.  Eliot looked conflicted for a moment, like he was considering what he wanted to say, and then he smiled at Quentin in that Eliot way that made Quentin’s knees go slightly weak.  

“I’ll just get changed,” he said, grabbing some clothing out of a closet Quentin hadn’t noticed before and retreating quickly into the bathroom.  

Quentin let out the breath he’d been holding.  This was not going to be easy. And how the hell had they run out of rooms?  He leaned the bag he was holding against the wall and sat down on the edge of the little bed that was now his, scrubbing his palm across his face.  This was not how any of this was supposed to go.

The bathroom door swung open and Eliot was back in the room, fully dressed now in what passed for casual in Eliot-world, and it was just as alluring as half-naked Eliot, although the lack of towel made it easier for Quentin to keep his thoughts running in complete sentences.

“So,” Eliot said, standing at least a foot farther away than Quentin was used to, which was almost certainly a bad sign of some kind. “You’re staying here, now.”

Quentin brushed at the hair that swung in front of his face.  “Yeah—um—I guess? Margo said there wasn’t enough space, which is, you know, which is weird because why did they put me here, then?”

Eliot shrugged.  “My room is the biggest, I guess.”

Quentin shook his head, which just dislodged the hair behind his ear again; this was becoming more and more awkward.  “I meant in general. But...we don’t have that bigger on the inside magic thing?”

Eliot smiled slightly.  “Like the Harry Potter tents?”

“Um—yeah, sure.”  Quentin wasn’t entirely sure that was the same thing he was talking about, but he liked it when Eliot edged into nerd territory, even if the two of them weren’t aligned with the same magical children’s books all the time.  

“Harder than it sounds.”  Eliot paused, glancing around the room like he wasn’t sure where to sit, even though it was his room.  He settled for perching on the edge of his bed, which just made Quentin focus on the fact that he was looking at Eliot sitting on a bed, which wasn’t even slightly suggestive, and wow was this the wrong time to be thinking about that because Eliot was looking straight at him, still.  “Anyway, this is it.” He gestured around. “The bathroom’s there, and I guess I can try to make you some closet space.”

Quentin nodded, as if he wasn’t struggling to keep his breathing steady.   _He was going to be sleeping in Eliot’s room and sharing the same bathroom and closet space and...and...he needed to get a fucking hold of himself._

“Okay,” Quentin replied, looking around and noticing the time on a clock on Eliot’s bedside table. Oh, he really had to go to class, which was both a pity and a mercy.  “I’ve gotta get to class, actually. Do you guys have some—um—bedsheets I can use later?”

“Oh. You didn’t bring your own sheets?”  Quentin shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll find something.  See you later.”

Quentin stood up and waved ( _oh god had he actually waved?_ ) before leaving Eliot’s room, which was now his room, and wow, this was going to be difficult.  

— —

It turned out the something that Eliot found was one of his own sets of sheets, a purple satiny affair that wasn’t even twin-sized, but just hung off the edges of his bed like shiny curtains.  Quentin ran his fingers over the smooth fabric; he’d honestly been expecting the scratchy, white, over-bleached linens that were standard stock in large institutions, but this was way, way better.  It felt like he was doing something illicit, smoothing sheets that belonged to Eliot between his fingers, alone in their shared room, while Eliot sat downstairs with everyone else drinking the newest contender for signature cocktail (which Quentin thought looked discouragingly green, but everyone else was cooing over).  

Quentin wandered around the room, now that he had it to himself for a moment; stopping to appreciate the dim sunlight filtering through the windows, the messy stacks of papers sitting on Eliot’s desk (the desk seemed to be the only part of the room that wasn’t kept immaculate), the slight rumple in the sheets on Eliot’s bed that indicated that he’d been sitting or lying there earlier (Quentin almost resisted touching the spot gently, and even then only allowed himself to place his fingertips there for a moment); the bathroom, which was a very standard shower-toilet-sink setup, in which Quentin was unsurprised to see that Eliot’s bathroom products greatly outnumbered his own, although a small amount of space had been made on a shower shelf and the sink counter, clearly for him; and the closet, where someone (Quentin was guessing Margo) had already hung up Quentin’s nicer articles of clothing, which still paled in comparison to Eliot’s clothing, especially when they were hung side by side.  

Quentin unpacked a few more things, moving the appropriate ones into the empty spaces in the bathroom, and creating a little stack of books next to the bed since he didn’t have a side table of his own, placing one of the Fillory books in the bed next to his pillow, just in case his nerves overcame him later, so he would have a readily available comfort.

He went downstairs and was immediately pulled into the group, so quickly that Quentin had to blink water out of his eyes as he took a sip of what was actually a really delicious drink, color notwithstanding.  Quentin was used to hanging on the outside, talking but not sitting centrally, participating but not in any especially meaningful way, so being pulled into the very middle of a group, Eliot’s hand moving from his wrist to his shoulder like the physical contact was nothing as they sat side by side on a couch, Margo with her feet on Eliot’s lap, close enough to occasionally kick Quentin lightly when she wanted his attention, made him feel something new and pleasant.  Quentin was happy—weirdly happy—hey-I-might-belong-here happy. And then the party started dispersing, and Quentin was left alone with Margo and Eliot, until Margo left with some off-handed comment about beauty sleep and then it was just Quentin and Eliot, climbing a seemingly endless flight of stairs to get to _their_ room, even if it was just temporary and meant nothing.  Quentin’s pulse was flying, and he wondered if he was actually going to be able to get any sleep until this situation was resolved.  

They stood, awkwardly, for a moment, once they were both in the room, unsure of what came next.  Then Eliot raised an eyebrow and went into the bathroom for a few minutes while Quentin continued standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting his turn, apparently, and feeling much more nervous than he should be feeling about nothing.

Eliot came out of the bathroom in nothing but an honestly way too short to be decent robe that looked like it was similar material to the sheets, and Quentin felt his face getting hot, even though Eliot seemed completely comfortable.  Quentin practically ran into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He took a few moments to breathe, then brushed his teeth and steeled his nerves and walked back out into the room.

Quentin nearly turned right around and retreated back into the bathroom.  Eliot had shed his robe and was lying in bed, his sheets pulled up over him just enough to cover him from the waist down, but not nearly enough to prevent the clear outline of his body from showing through, and to make matters worse, he was reading a book.  This was entirely too close to Quentin’s general fantasy—hot, naked, in bed, literate.

“Something wrong?” Eliot asked, looking up from his book, and Quentin realized he was still kind of standing awkwardly, holding onto the bathroom door like it was a crutch.  So, that was a good start.

Quentin shook his head and walked over to his bed.  It struck him, abruptly and with force, that he was also going to have to change out of his clothing and into something more appropriate for sleeping.  He wished he’d thought about that before he’d run into the bathroom, because now his choices were: find pajamas (or some kind of shorts t-shirt combo that would pass for pajamas) and go back into the bathroom to change, find pajamas and change right there in the room, or just keep all of his clothes on and get into bed and hope Eliot didn’t notice.

He opted for the last one, and just dove into his bed, jeans and button-up shirt and undershirt and all, not even taking off his socks, like this was a completely normal totally not strange behavior.  The sheets were really nice, extremely pleasantly smooth and soft and cool, and Quentin sort of regretted his decision because he suspected these sheets would feel just amazing on bare skin (which reminded him that Eliot was naked in bed like six feet away from him which…just made him glad that he’d kept the armor of his jeans on).  

“Um, Quentin?”  

Quentin looked up, and Eliot was staring at him, bemused.  “Yeah?”

“Are you really going to sleep with all of your clothes on?”

He thought he was probably imagining the slight disappointment underlying Eliot’s words.  Probably it was just what Eliot sounded like when he was tired and relaxed in bed with a book (like six feet away).    

“This—um—this is how I sleep.”  Yeah, that sounded true.

“Come on, Q,” Eliot said, his voice softening. “You don’t have to sleep like that.”

Quentin sighed.  He loved it when Eliot called him Q, because it had developed so quickly and naturally, and it felt symbolic that Eliot liked him enough to call him by a nickname; Quentin liked the way it sounded coming out of Eliot’s mouth, smooth and cute and sexy.  And he really needed to stop focusing on that last part, at least as long as they were stuck being roommates. The last thing Quentin wanted to do was make Eliot uncomfortable.

“I’m fine,” he said, softly, even though his pants were digging into his waist uncomfortably, and it was a little bit too warm in the room to be sleeping in two shirts.  

Eliot didn’t reply, then Quentin heard the sound of the book closing and Eliot said, “Goodnight, Q,” and turned the lights out, possibly with magic, since Quentin was pretty sure Eliot’s fancy floor lamps weren’t on any light switches near the bed.  Quentin didn’t reply, because his throat had gone suddenly dry—he was suddenly conscious of how long an entire night was. He could hear the swish of Eliot moving around in his sheets, and the whole room smelled faintly of Eliot, now that he was focusing on it, or maybe the scent was clinging to his borrowed sheets, and he was suddenly very, very warm.  

Quentin waited what seemed like a reasonable amount of time, then wriggled out of his pants and button-up (and wow, the sheets really did feel amazing on his bare skin, even better than he had imagined).  He listened to Eliot’s breathing slow, and eventually, after running through a few scenarios where Eliot woke up and approached Quentin’s bed (absolutely none of which happened), Quentin finally drifted off to sleep.

— —

A week passed, uneventfully, although Quentin wasn’t sure a heart rate monitor would have backed up that assessment.  He slept, sometimes, mostly, and sometimes he and Eliot would talk before going to sleep, and sometimes they wouldn’t, and sometimes Eliot would be gone when Quentin woke up, and sometimes Quentin would wake up first and fall a few minutes behind watching Eliot sleep (not in a creepy way, though, just in a _wow his roommate is pretty when he’s asleep_ kind of way).  

The next Saturday, Eliot didn’t come back to the room the entire night, and Quentin spent all of Sunday feeling hurt and worried even though he really had no right to those feelings. He had pouted about it, maybe more obviously than he intended; and then on Sunday evening Eliot had wrapped an arm around Quentin’s shoulders and sat and talked with him until early in the morning about nothing and ignored everyone else who approached them.  Quentin had gone to sleep feeling incredibly confused.

Quentin came back to the Cottage, after just over a week of living there, with a huge assignment. The magic for the assignment was difficult enough that even Alice was a little bit stressed.  When he’d pointed out that she was already doing everything pretty perfectly, she had bristled and told him ‘There’s always room for improvement’ and stomped off, which left Quentin to awkwardly follow her from a few feet back since they were going home to the same place.  

He tried studying in the common space, for a while, bouncing between couches and chairs and alcoves, trying to immerse himself in a textbook instead of the epically distracting things happening around him.  It was, to be frank, not working. Quentin was smart, and he wasn’t used to studying hard. Magic seemed to come to him a lot less quickly than say, number theory had, and he was considering retreating back to the library (where, bonus, he wouldn’t have to watch Alice perfectly running through her own practice, looking around suspiciously like someone was going to bust her for sipping from a martini glass in between tuts).  

Just as Quentin was gathering his books together to leave, Eliot appeared out of nowhere and immediately grabbed onto his free hand and Quentin tried to ignore the little jolts of electricity this always seemed to produce.  

“Come with me.”

“No—hey—Eliot, I have to—um—study.”  Quentin let his protests die out as Eliot dragged him up the stairs towards their room ( _and no, this wasn’t how one of his more common fantasies started, not at all)_.  

“Tada,” Eliot said, deadpan, as he motioned towards a new piece of furniture in the room, a smaller but still functional desk that sat directly next to his desk, with its own comfy looking desk chair.

Quentin blinked at it.  This was a temporary situation, so why was Eliot losing even more space to a new piece of furniture that was just for Quentin?   He was preparing to say ‘thanks but you didn’t have to do this,’ when it occurred to Quentin that he really did need a place to study that wasn’t among the masses, and this was pretty much perfect.  

“You—you got me a desk?” he said, still a little awestruck.  

Eliot looked almost embarrassed.  “I didn’t make it myself, or anything.  I thought you could use a place to study, since you don’t have your own room yet.”

Quentin felt himself grinning as he walked forward to put his books down on the desk.  It was clearly not a new piece of furniture, he could see past students’ scribbles lightly stained across it, but it was perfect.  “You got me a desk.”

“I did.”  Quentin could hear the smile in Eliot’s voice.  

Quentin put his hand on the desk; things were more real when you touched them.  He realized he should probably say thanks. “Um—thanks.”

He turned back towards Eliot, with the intention of maybe shaking his hand in thanks or something, and was surprised when Eliot pulled him into a loose hug.  It lasted about five seconds, then Eliot let go and swept out the door.

“Don’t study too hard,” he called back as he left. “We’re grilling steaks in an hour.”

Quentin looked at the desk, how it was just touching Eliot’s own desk, even though there was no  reason for them to be that close in such a large room. And there he was, again, thinking about completely innocuous things and making them seem bigger in his head; as if reading into the desk positioning would get him anything other than wound up.  Still, Eliot had gotten him a desk. He had another piece of furniture in this room, and it was starting to feel more and more like their room, instead of Eliot’s room where he was crashing, even though it was temporary and it was just Eliot’s room, and he was just crashing.  

Quentin sat down at the desk, opened his textbooks, and tried not to think about it.  

— —

Quentin lasted two entire weeks before the sight of Eliot every single night in various states of undress as he slipped under his clingy sheets started to invade not only his dreams but his waking thoughts, too.  It didn’t help for Quentin to think about how he and Eliot were friends, or how Eliot was way out of his league, or how objectifying people was, you know, bad. He waited until Eliot was gone, and definitely in a class, before he climbed out of bed and retreated into the safety of the bathroom shower.  

Quentin stripped out of his pajamas and turned the water on, as hot as he could handle before it turned his skin red, and climbed into the shower, letting the water drip over him and soak his hair and skin.  The steam building up around him made Quentin more comfortable, possibly because of the warm air itself and possibly because it made him feel more obscured. Through the bubbly glass of the shower door, he could see one of Eliot’s robes hanging on a hook on the door, and it reminded Quentin of the night before when Eliot had spent at least an hour lounging on top of his sheets in just the robe, which barely came to his thighs, sipping a drink and reading.  All the while, Quentin had been lying in his own bed, willing his body to not betray him when Eliot shifted and the robe fabric rode up a little bit, trying to focus on his favorite chapter of Fillory and Further Book Two, instead of concentrating on Eliot’s lips touching the glass, or his bare legs on the bed, so close and yet…

Now there was no one there but Quentin and the water, and the robe reminding him.  Quentin couldn’t help starting to feel aroused as he thought of Eliot and let the water caress his skin. Within seconds, he was hard and fully aware that there was nothing stopping him from taking himself in hand and slowly stroking, stoking the coiled heat in his stomach.  With his free hand, Quentin popped open a bottle of the body wash that Eliot used and poured a tiny bit over his cock, letting it function as sudsy lube, the scent of it strong enough that he could imagine Eliot there with him.

Quentin let his eyes fall shut and leaned heavily against one of the shower walls.  In his mind, Eliot would open the door just at this moment, ‘oh hey sorry Q, forgot something.’  He would fix his eyes on Quentin, showering, wet and hard, and Eliot’s eyes would darken and his breath with quicken and he would walk slowly, savoring the moment, towards Quentin.

He imagined how Eliot would strip for him, slowly, deliberately, running his own hands over his skin as he revealed it, clothing dropping to the floor in a pile until Eliot was completely naked, just like Quentin (or naked except for his tie, which Fantasy Quentin could grab onto to pull him in close).  Eliot would walk towards the shower, say, ‘mind if I join you,’ and then step in, pushing Quentin into a hungry kiss and then backing him against the wall. Quentin could almost feel the pressure of Eliot’s lips against his, the heat of his body against Quentin’s, their cocks pressing up against each other’s hips, hot and wet with the shower.  

Quentin’s cock was throbbing, aching with his own slow touch.  He imagined how Eliot would moan his name, how he would wrap his arms around Eliot’s perfect body and Eliot would grasp him and they would rut against each other, how he would slip his tongue around Eliot’s ear and then kiss down the side of his neck.  He would wrap his hand around Eliot’s cock, slowly moving just enough to drive him crazy and then Fantasy Eliot would laugh, ‘fuck that’s good but let me do this for you,’ and he would drop to his knees and wrap his perfect mouth around Quentin’s cock, and Quentin could almost feel the heat of his mouth, the perfect suction followed by Eliot’s tongue dragging along the sensitive part on the underside, Eliot sucking him with slow deliberate motions until Quentin was desperate.

Quentin knew he was making sounds as he stroked himself, getting faster and holding himself more firmly as he imagined Eliot doing the same, imagined fisting his hand in Eliot’s wet curls.  Quentin’s hips began to buck into the air, following his hand, chasing the mouth that wasn’t there but felt so real. Quentin could feel the warmth in his stomach reaching a boiling point and his legs started to shake slightly as he imagined Eliot taking him as deeply as possible, looking up at him so beautiful with eyes full of lust and Quentin heard himself cry out as he came, spilling all over his hand and the shower wall.

Quentin opened his eyes and leaned into the wall, using his free hand as support until his legs stopped shaking and his breathing slowed to normal.  He let the water run over his hand and his softening cock, getting an extra jolt of pleasure from the way the water droplets felt on his overly sensitive skin.  Without thinking about it, Quentin poured more of Eliot’s body wash onto his hand and used it instead of his own soap, letting Eliot’s soap smell completely cover him.  

He stood in the shower for a little while longer, trying not to freak out about how completely unattainable his fantasies were.  He wanted Eliot, and it was definitely not going to happen; he was stuck between the orgasm afterglow and the rude awakening of finding himself in the shower alone.

Ten minutes later, Quentin went downstairs, feeling refreshed, and calm, and really fucked with regard to his rooming situation.  He followed the smell of bacon into the kitchen and found Margo and some girl he didn’t know, drinking coffee and watching bacon sizzle.  Margo gave the unknown girl a look and the girl left the kitchen, giggling.

“Hey, Q,” Margo said, sipping her coffee nonchalantly.

“Hey, is there extra food, possibly?”  Quentin hadn’t realized he was hungry until he smelled the bacon.  He knew the Cottage kitchen generally functioned as eat only the shit you made yourself, unless they were having a group dinner, but Margo was making what looked like a huge number of bacon slices, so he didn’t feel bad about asking.  

Margo considered him, then silently poured coffee into a clean mug and passed it to Quentin, who accepted gratefully.  

“I guess there’s enough,” she said, “if you pay the toll.”

Quentin had to try really hard not to roll his eyes.  “What’s the toll?”

Margo grinned.  “You have to tell me how your rooming situation is going.”  She turned away to flip some bacon. “And you have to let me teach you a sound dampening spell.”

Quentin frowned, took a sip of the coffee.  It was good—he’d gone through a point in his life where he wasn’t allowed to drink a lot of caffeine, and it had taught him to really appreciate good coffee—he was glad his caffeine intake wasn’t limited now, considering he was getting much less sleep since rooming with Eliot.  

“It’s fine,” he said, between sips.  “Er—good. Um. Why do I have to learn a sound dampening spell?”

Margo turned back to him, depositing a plate full of bacon onto the island between them.  “Because, Q, not that I care, but. If you’re going to be that loud by yourself, it’ll probably just be worse when you’re not alone, and it’s really just polite to learn how to dampen the sound.”

Quentin felt his ears going red, and he brushed his hair behind his ears repeatedly, just to have something to do with his hands.  “Wait—um—you could—hear? Me?”

Margo full-on grinned.  “Well, yeah, but like I said it doesn’t bother me.  More power to you. But hey, some people are prudes and somehow still get sorted here, so.”

“So, dampening spell…got it.”  Quentin wanted to run and hide somewhere, but he also really wanted the bacon, and besides, it wasn’t like Margo knew what he’d been _thinking about_ when he was making noises.  So really, he shouldn’t be that embarrassed (which, yeah, that wasn’t enough to convince himself to actually not be embarrassed, but he _really_ wanted the bacon).  He grabbed a piece and took a bite—worth it.

“Yeah, I’ll show you.  But, you’re doing good rooming with El?” Margo pressed.  Quentin didn’t really want to talk about it, since he felt like he was still in a headspace where he might accidentally tell Margo much more than he really wanted to reveal to her.  She did that to him, made him want to just admit to her what he was feeling; she had a commanding presence, and Quentin wasn’t great at standing up to authority.

“Yeah, no, it’s good.  Yeah, good.”

“Great,” Margo said, and the glint in her eye made it seem like she somehow had figured out what Quentin had been thinking about, even though his words were just about as vague as he could possibly make them.  “I’m sure we’ll find you your own room soon, though.”

“Oh,”  Quentin said, stuffing another piece of bacon into his mouth and forgetting that he didn’t want to tell Margo anything that might confirm or deny whatever she was silently accusing him of.  “No rush.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for drinking/intoxication, same mental health cw as for ch.1
> 
> extra love to my beta [zade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade) for doing such good betas while also concussed.

Quentin stepped into the Cottage, a few days later, and was met with a strange, tropical kind of heat, like a rainforest, or a sauna, or something.  Which was… _unusual_ for upstate New York.  Margo walked by him, wearing nothing except a tiny bikini (like, really, incredibly tiny) and heels, and Quentin lightly grabbed her arm (okay, he tapped her arm, but she was walking quickly).  

“Um, what’s happening?”

“With the temperature?” Margo asked, as if he could possibly be talking about anything else.  She sounded thoroughly unconcerned. “Weather spell gone wrong. Terrible, right? Its sphere of influence covers the area right outside, though, too, and at least there’s a breeze, so we’re rolling with it and having a summer-themed party.  You should come out—change first.” 

She did a little shimmy to demonstrate her swimsuit attire, in case somehow Quentin had missed that.  Just because he was infatuated with someone else didn’t mean he was blind.  

“Um—yeah, okay, I have some work to finish but…yeah, maybe later.”

“Eliot’s swimsuit is even smaller than mine,” Margo said conspiratorially before walking away.  Quentin’s mind exploded imagining that, and wow he both seriously hoped Margo was lying and seriously hoped she was telling the truth (although he was completely certain that if she was telling the truth, the sight of her _and_ Eliot in tiny swimsuits was probably enough to break him irreparably) and that thought just convinced him that putting on his own swimsuit was an incredibly bad idea, no matter how warm it was. 

Quentin shot a quick, hopeful glance towards the back door as Margo pushed through, but he couldn’t really see anyone outside.  He trudged up the stairs, sweating through his sweater, and pushed open the door to their room cautiously, just in case Margo was lying and Eliot was actually there, in his allegedly very small swimsuit.

The room was empty, and Quentin was both relieved and disappointed.  He swung the door shut behind him and pulled off his sweater and shoes and then, because he was getting gross and no one was around and the room was a tropical level of hot and humid, decided to just shuck all of his clothes in a pile on the floor, grab a fresh pair of boxers, and head for the shower. 

Quentin felt strange, slightly nauseous and unsteady as well as warm as he stepped into the shower—apparently magical heat came with side effects.  The cold water helped, although no matter how hot it was in the Cottage, standing under cold water for longer than ten or so minutes started to make his skin feel prickly and weird.  Quentin shut off the water, grabbed his towel and dried off just enough to make himself comfortable (leaving his hair dripping wet because hey, it was hot and that would help a little bit).  He pulled on his fresh boxers and hung the towel up again, not thinking about the fact that he was still changing out of his pants underneath his sheets every night, and he usually kept himself covered up as much as possible anyway because then he didn’t have to be hyper-focused on what everyone else around might be thinking.  He’d been more worried about that since Penny had confirmed it did actually happen, that Penny often caught people thinking about his own more risque style, even if they were mostly positive thoughts—but the Cottage was _hot_ and Quentin was by himself in his room except that when he opened the bathroom door and stepped out, Eliot was standing in front of him. 

“Hey, Q.”  Eliot was standing inches in front of the bathroom door, directly in Quentin’s path, unavoidable, wearing a mostly translucent salmon-y colored robe that was tied enough to obscure the exact color and shape of Eliot’s tiny swimsuit, but not the size; he had really obnoxious-but-somehow-they-still-looked-good sunglasses balanced on top of his head and what looked like a margarita in each hand.  

Eliot’s tone sounded strange and stilted, and Quentin became suddenly, terribly, incredibly focused on the fact that he was just wearing his boxers and that he was wet and probably looked ridiculous and also this wasn’t really his room it was Eliot’s and of course Eliot would come back to his own room at some point and— _what had he been thinking_.  Not that some part of him hadn’t been hoping Eliot would be there, but in that fantasy he wasn’t standing there looking like a wet rat, or already getting sweaty again from the stupid ambient heat.  Quentin could feel his cheeks getting redder and redder.  

“Oh, _fuck_ , sorry, hi, I—I didn’t know you were here or...”  He was rambling, so, that was great, and still feeling kind of lightheaded and sick from the heat.  And also he was just standing in the doorway staring, which was bad when he was only wearing boxers and Eliot was wearing that and a single drop of sweat was slipping down Eliot’s chest which was basically impossible for Quentin not to watch because ohmygod.

“Don’t apologize, it’s your room, too.”

“Right.  I was just going to change, but…” _but Eliot was standing in the way and he honestly couldn’t remember anything including where he kept his clothing._   

“Do you need to borrow a swimsuit?” Eliot asked, his voice still sounding weird, like he was trying for his usual tone and something kept getting stuck in his throat.  His face looked slightly pained. Eliot took a tiny step forward and Quentin flinched back away from him unintentionally, his rising anxiety mixing with the nausea and the heat and creating the kind of panic that made Quentin reflexively want to keep a bubble of space around him.

“No, I’ve got—um—work.  So if you don’t mind?” Quentin made a flailing motion he hoped indicated his desire to move past Eliot into the room.  He thought he might be making a weird face. He really wished it wasn’t so hot. He wished he had thought to bring a t-shirt into the bathroom, and he wished that those exquisite droplets of sweat would stop making their way distractingly down Eliot’s body. 

Eliot frowned.  Actually, he looked Quentin up and down, taking him in, let out a breath and _then_ Eliot frowned—which was objectively worse than just frowning, without the accompanying assessment.  He made a little flourish with one hand, tipping the margarita glass precariously, and sidestepped out of Quentin’s way.  

Quentin practically ran over to the closet to look for clothes.  Eliot made a little sound as Quentin passed him, dripping water on the floor, which was so clearly disgust (dripping on the floor was probably a cardinal sin in such a well-put-together room) that Quentin felt his stomach lurch with the disappointment.  He reached for a shirt and held onto it, like a buoy. This was not what was supposed to happen—in none of his fantasies did Eliot look him over and frown.  

“Are you...okay?” Eliot asked, and without turning Quentin felt the tone, the pity and fear that he’d spent his life hearing other people use when they asked him that.  Eliot wasn’t supposed to be other people.  

It was just the fucking heat, it was the heat and whatever other magic was in the air and Quentin felt overwhelmed, and angry with Margo, unreasonably, as if the situation was her fault just because she’d been responsible for introducing him to it, as if it had been her job to just wave him away from the Cottage, instead of suggesting he join their tiny swimsuit party.  And yes, okay, maybe he didn’t deserve to be angry with anyone except himself, but he felt like he wanted to kick something across the floor, or possibly curl up in a ball in the closet for a few hours so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Just as soon as he got a shirt on.  

“Fine, just...leave? For a minute?”  Quentin’s voice sounded angrier than he’d intended. 

There was a palpable pause, and he knew he should turn around, and talk to Eliot, and apologize for flinching and being undressed and snapping at him, but he couldn’t make himself turn, he needed...he needed to get out of the heat first.  He heard Eliot sigh, then hesitate, like he wanted to say something else, too. Quentin took a deep breath and pulled a shirt off a hanger and over his head, and when he turned back around, Eliot was gone.  

He’d left one of the margaritas on Quentin’s desk, but Quentin didn’t feel like drinking or partying.  He pulled on his earlier discarded pants, scooped up his books, and left, not even sure where he was heading.  

— —

The next few nights were awkward, although Quentin suspected he might be the only one who thought so.  He couldn’t ignore Eliot, because Eliot demanded attention and Quentin was in deep enough that he didn’t stand a chance, and he didn’t want to talk about how uncomfortable and disappointed he’d felt, and Quentin made sure he was getting to bed far before or after Eliot.  Quentin was half hoping Eliot would make a point to say something first, but instead the only person who seemed to notice that something was weird with him was Margo. 

“What’s up your ass, Coldwater?” she asked him, for the second or third time.  Eliot had stepped away from the conversation to grab drink refills and Quentin was sitting talking to Alice about their coursework (and absolutely not stealing glances at Eliot, _absolutely not_ ).  

“Noth—what? Nothing,” Quentin hissed back, “I’ve just got a lot of work to do.”  

At which point Alice had (thankfully) taken the cue to stand up from the couch and go upstairs with him to study, so that it didn’t seem like he’d just gotten flustered and run away (or maybe it did, but he had, so).  Following Alice upstairs, Quentin felt a slight pang of guilt when he rushed past Eliot juggling a handful of glasses, one of which, based on Eliot’s expression, was probably meant for Quentin, even though he hadn’t asked for it.

Quentin had been in Alice’s room before, and it always gave him a tiny surge of jealousy.  She had a real, people-sized bed, and her own closet, and no roommate who made her want to simultaneously hide and throw herself at them.  

“I can’t believe you got a real bed,” Quentin huffed, throwing himself backwards onto her bed.  It was much more comfortable than his. He bet Eliot’s was even nicer. 

“Hey, I deserve a real bed,” Alice replied, sitting at her desk and plopping her books on top of it, “I work hard.”

“I work hard, too,”  Quentin protested, starting at a spot on her ceiling.  He was almost entirely sure she was just teasing him, but his current attention span was hovering somewhere around 80%.  He probably should have taken that drink, after all.  

“I’m sure Margo will get the rooming situation figured out soon.”

Alice didn’t sound like she was sure.  She sounded so careful that Quentin sat up to look at her face—she looked cautious, too, like she knew something she thought she wasn’t supposed to talk about.  To be fair, Alice always kind of looked like she knew something she wasn’t going to share with anyone else, but this time it seemed to be very directed at him.

“Yeah, sure.” 

Quentin looked back at the ceiling.  There were some weird little scorch marks there, probably from past occupants of the room.  Quentin wondered if he could shoot a spark that high. He heard Alice open her book, pages rustling, and concentrated on focusing his energy into a little ball of force he could try to throw at the ceiling.  Quentin knew it was a lost cause, his mischievous streak wasn’t strong enough to cover casual incendiaries, but he wanted a project and he didn’t want to actually study. 

Quentin let his spell dissipate and glanced over at Alice, who was, of course, actually studying, although it didn’t look like she was referencing one of their standard textbooks.  He wondered vaguely if Alice had actually talked to Margo about his rooming situation.

“Hey, are you like, friends with Margo now?”

Alice looked up.  ”Maybe.” She paused, considering. “Are you ‘like’ having a fight with Eliot?” 

Quentin frowned.  “Maybe.”

Alice looked annoyed and then kind of sad and then just determined. “You don’t really want to study do you?”

Quentin really needed to find some stupider friends.  “More like, hide out?”

Alice sighed.  “That’s incredibly childish. And I need to actually study.  So Quentin, please leave my room.” 

Quentin looked at her skeptically, but Alice had put on the expression that meant she whole-heartedly believed what she was saying and would not listen to anything else. “You’re kicking me out?”

“Mmhmm.” 

Alice stood up briefly to hold open the door, and Quentin pulled himself reluctantly off of her bed, because he wasn’t going to stay where he wasn’t wanted, even if he’d barely been there an hour.  He liked when Alice was confident in what she wanted, but honestly holding open the door was a little bit unnecessarily aggressive—maybe she was picking that up from Margo. 

As Quentin stepped out into the hallway, he thought he heard her mutter “idiots,” but the door was closed behind him before he could ask.

He could hear laughter filtering up from downstairs, but Quentin didn’t think trying to walk back his studying excuse would go over very well, especially if both Margo and Eliot were staring at him, so going downstairs wasn’t really an option.  Instead, sighing, Quentin went back to his room, ready to resign himself to hours alone, reading or going to sleep tragically early.

Except that when he got there, Eliot was already in the room, sitting on his bed, watching the door.  He stood up when Quentin walked in, smoothing his shirt, like they were having an official meeting or something.  Quentin felt an irrational urge to bow or shake his hand. 

“Hi,” Eliot said, and Quentin wanted to melt into the word.  Not interacting with Eliot for even just a few days had been torture; he hadn’t let himself realize fully how much he drank in the attention, how much he wanted to be the focus of Eliot’s attention, how much Eliot had become part of what Quentin used to fuel himself.

“Hi.”  It was direly insufficient, but Quentin’s more articulate words, practiced over and over in his own mind, tended to get stuck coming out, like starch through a sieve.

“You were with Alice?”  Eliot asked, sounding like he was trying much too hard to _not_ sound annoyed.  

“I was studying.”

Quentin put his hands in his pocket, like that was going to help him.  He thought he remembered reading about power poses helping people win arguments, but he would have felt stupid in a power pose, and he didn’t know if they were actually even having an argument.  It felt like one, but he didn’t really understand why. 

Quentin watched Eliot’s face go through a few quiet emotions, watched him take a swig from a flask he had hidden somewhere on his person, watched him look at Quentin with the expression that Quentin was familiar with—the one that he used to imagine might be wanting, but was maybe just the way that Eliot looked, like he couldn’t get enough of what he was seeing.  Quentin didn’t know how a look like that could be a lie. He really didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want the confirmation, but he didn't want to keep avoiding him either, and something about the way Alice had said his situation would be fixed soon made him feel like maybe it wouldn’t.

“Look, Q—” Eliot started at the same time that Quentin said “Eliot, I’m—”  The words dissolved into silence; Quentin felt embarrassed, Eliot looked almost amused.  

“Look, Quentin,” he began again, taking steps forward toward Quentin. “You’ve been avoiding me and you don’t need to.”

Quentin didn’t know if that counted as an apology.  He didn’t even know if he needed an apology, because Eliot hadn’t done anything (except break Quentin a little bit without realizing he was doing it, because apparently Quentin couldn’t help but read volumes into _every. little. thing)_.

“I acted like an ass,” Quentin replied, for once getting his thoughts out instead of stumbling, because this was important, and he needed to fix this.  He needed Eliot to keep walking towards him instead of turning away and he needed it to happen as soon as possible. 

Eliot was standing right in front of him now.  A similar positioning, actually, to the other day, except without the weird heat magic hanging in the air between them.  Without the disgusted sound in Eliot’s throat that made Quentin feel useless. Without the rejection, and with only the light reflecting in Eliot’s eyes and the sound of his breathing and the easy way Quentin got swept up into the wanting of it all ( _none of these problems ever used to happen when he roomed with Penny_ ).

“Yes, you did,” Eliot said, “but somehow, Q, I can’t hold it against you.”

Quentin could feel Eliot’s breath on his face.  “You did, too,” he mumbled, and Eliot laughed, lightly. 

“Yeah, but you forgive me, too, right?”

Quentin honestly wasn’t sure why that sounded sexy, but it really, really did, and his mind was flailing in the face of the _oh god he still wanted to throw Eliot on the bed_ feeling mixed with the memory of Eliot looking him over and frowning.  

Eliot’s mouth quirked up even further into a smile, probably because Quentin’s desperate indecision leaning towards doing whatever Eliot wanted him to do was showing.  Eliot was close enough that Quentin could smell his soap and cologne; every breath he took was Eliot, every time he blinked and opened his eyes again, Eliot was the only thing filling his vision—it was intoxicating.  Quentin nodded. 

“I think you should hug me now,” Eliot replied, and Quentin really had no choice but to close the distance between them and let Eliot wrap his arms around him.

Quentin had been touched by Eliot before—a tug on his hand or arm, an arm around his shoulder, one glorious time Eliot’s head resting lightly on his knee while Quentin sat on a chair and Eliot on the floor—but this was the first time he’d really been wrapped in Eliot’s arms with his full attention, no other conversation, no Margo, no buzz of activity around them.  Quentin knew this was just Eliot being Eliot; tactile, affectionate Eliot, who never kept his distance, and it didn’t mean anything, no matter what Quentin wanted. 

Hesitantly, Quentin pulled away; lingering in Eliot’s arms was a fantasy, and Quentin needed to ground himself if they were going to keep living together in this room; he wanted to let himself _feel_ Eliot but not so much that he couldn’t remember to pull away, to take a breath and commit the moment to memory and then pull himself together before he forgot how to stand on his own.  This was one of those moments that defined something, but there was nothing to define, no steps to take that weren’t moving backwards or treading water, and the clashing of everything Quentin knew and everything Quentin felt was creating an internal cacophony that would overwhelm him unless he pulled away and tried to remember that Eliot was his friend, and his roommate, and that was it. 

Eliot let him go, didn’t resist the pull Quentin slowly exerted to tear himself away, maybe his fingers lingered on Quentin’s skin a little longer than was necessary, but Quentin wasn’t sure he wasn’t imagining it, trying to turn what he knew into something easier, something better, something less _sorry, Quentin, but_.

“Want a drink?”  Eliot asked, and Quentin knew he was imagining that Eliot’s eyes were darker, that his cheeks were slightly flushed from anything other than the alcohol in his flask, that the way he flexed his fingers had anything to do with the loss of contact.  It was all just in Quentin’s mind, the way he wanted to see it.  

Quentin sighed.  “No, I should actually study.”

Eliot raised an eyebrow.  “Maybe I can help? I’m a very good tutor.”

There was no end to how alluring Eliot’s words sounded echoing through Quentin’s mind.  Fantasy Quentin would shoot back something equally coy: _I bet we wouldn’t get much studying done, huh?_   Actual Quentin just smiled and tried to remember how to talk. “Thanks for the offer, but—“

“Don’t worry, Q, I’m only slightly offended.”  Eliot was at the door now. “I’ll bring you up a study drink.”

“Great,” Quentin replied, after Eliot was already out of the room.  He dragged his books over to his little desk and sank down into the chair.  

Two things were very, very clear to Quentin.  One was that Eliot still wanted to be his friend,  even though that meant swallowing down a lot of very strong feelings and proceeding with everything as usual.  And the second was that Quentin really, really did not want to just be Eliot’s friend. Quentin sighed and opened his book. 

— — 

The party was immense.  It was an all-out, everyone’s invited (“Everyone worth inviting,” Margo had noted), fully stocked bar, loud music, debauched rager.  There were people Quentin had never seen, nevermind spoken to; there was an entire corner full of psychics that absolutely terrified him, there were things floating over his head, and a sparkle in the air that felt like a more ethereal version of loose glitter.  The fact that they hadn’t hired go-go dancers or strippers was frankly surprising (“Just stick around until later,” Margo had replied to _that_ , giving him a wink, and Quentin would spend the next hour trying not to think about that because _hey, corner of psychics_ ).

Quentin would have spent most of the party hiding in his own corner, except Eliot and Margo came over immediately to veto that plan.  Crowds like this made Quentin uneasy, where everyone was keeping one eye out for the next focus of attention—one big move, even unintentional, and all eyes turned to you—unlike the anonymous crowds of the city, where Quentin had felt more like a fish in a school, where no one was paying attention.  Eliot and Margo loved the party attention, wanted everyone watching them and knowing that this was their party, this triumph of recreation and enjoyment.  

Quentin would have hung back and let them do their thing, except that Eliot grabbed onto his hand somewhere in the second or third hour of the party (when people were still filtering in, and Eliot was still wearing a jacket, and the drinks were still being served in glasses made of actual glass) and hadn’t let go.  He’d pulled Quentin around, offering commentary about the people they passed and the drinks that Eliot kept somehow transporting into his hand and then depositing into Quentin’s (Quentin knew only enough about what he was drinking to know that it was stronger than it tasted). Margo alternated between standing with them, interjecting into Eliot’s stories and statements, whispering things that made Eliot laugh and Quentin blush (and once, nearly spit out his drink, _nearly_ ), and walking around the party, talking to everyone.  Quentin liked watching Margo mingle, it was like watching a celebrity walk a rope line, bestowing her presence on everyone, stopping for only a few minutes, looking through them all.  Quentin hoped she was kidding about the dancing.  

The Cottage got warm with bodies, although it wasn’t as terrible as Quentin remembered college parties being, the sparkly air thick with conversation and some possibly magic smoking.  Quentin couldn’t remember how many drinks he’d had, he’d stopped counting when they started coming in plastic cups instead of glass. It was somewhere between his last college party (awkward, wine, everyone needed to be studying instead, no real commitment to actual partying) and his first college party (awkward, unknown liquor, everyone feeling out living without parental eyes, committed enough that he’d been in a line of kids getting sick in the bushes at 3am).  

Quentin thought that being dragged along with Eliot would bother him, but instead he felt himself setting into the feeling of Eliot’s hand on his, the comfort of not having to negotiate this alone, even if he wasn’t sure what Eliot was getting out of the arrangement.  They had stopped to talk to Alice very briefly (Margo seemed to be paying her slightly more attention than everyone else, and Quentin would have paid money to hear what she’d whispered in Alice’s ear), and she’d given Quentin a smile that fell somewhere between encouraging and cautioning.  Eliot had pulled him over to a wall where Penny and Kady were not-discreetly eye-fucking, something that Eliot either didn’t notice or (more likely) chose to ignore in favor of engaging them in conversation about something inane, which only ended when Penny looked Quentin dead in the eyes and threatened to tell Eliot exactly what Quentin was thinking.  This had the benefits of getting Quentin out of talking to Penny and making Eliot’s attention snap back to Quentin, who chose not to try to read into Eliot’s expression—Drunk Quentin didn’t have to answer to anyone, even himself. 

Quentin lost track of the time, as he and Eliot both got progressively drunker, standing closer and closer together (Drunk Quentin had less spatial awareness and also was much less able to withstand the physical pull Eliot exerted, like a small moon), and speaking more quietly, to each other, rather than to everyone else—or maybe Quentin was just ignoring everyone else.  Quentin almost wanted to dance (bad idea or _great_ idea?) and he almost wanted to unbutton his shirt a little the way Eliot’s was, and he almost wanted to sing at the top of his lungs even though he really didn’t know the music, and he almost wanted to throw Eliot against a wall and press their bodies together and forget everyone else existed.  _Almost_.  

He was also starting to feel tired, in that _completely alive and want to stay awake for the entire night but honestly probably won’t be able to stay awake much longer_ way that happened when Quentin spent an entire evening drinking (and also clutching the hand of his unrequited crush/roommate).  He felt himself swaying slightly.  

“Do you want to dance?” Eliot asked, quietly, amused, his lips _so_ close to Quentin’s ear that Quentin could feel the tickle of his breath.  It made him shiver—Drunk Quentin was also much more easily aroused. 

“I think I want to sit down,” Quentin replied, talking louder, which was much less sexy.

Eliot glanced around the room.  There were couches, and chairs, although they’d been pushed against walls for the most part, and they were all visibly occupied.  Quentin tried to make a mental note of which couches would be safe to sit on in the morning—hopefully there was some kind of super bleach cleaning spell.  He was considering sitting down on the floor, or possibly getting Eliot into some position where he could just lean on him or…(he fervently hoped Penny had left, because Quentin’s thoughts were getting less and less guarded and more and more explicit).  

“Maybe we should go upstairs?”

_Yes, right, upstairs, to the room, that they shared, their shared room, with two beds, that one, yes, right, good._

_“_ Yeah, um, okay.”

Eliot moved towards the stairs, depositing his cup on a table, and Quentin followed suit, hoping that no one would knock it and spill the remaining liquid _oops_.  Eliot pulled Quentin along behind him, and Quentin felt like people were watching, mostly because people were always watching Eliot, and he was the one walking with Eliot tonight, at least.  He followed Eliot up the stairs, not looking back at the party once.  

The upstairs was surprisingly quiet, like the loud sounds from the first floor couldn’t permeate some barrier that started at the top of the stairs.  Quentin really liked magic, he kept remembering how things could surprise him, and it was a good feeling. Quentin’s thoughts were floating, he realized he’d forgotten to ask someone about the air glitter.  

Eliot pushed open the door to their ( _his_ ) room.  He was still holding onto Quentin’s hand.  Quentin’s stomach was becoming a pit of nerves and booze and butterflies, but the kind that just made him more nervous—evil butterflies.  He really wished he’d asked about the air glitter, but this didn’t seem like the time.  

Eliot led him into the room, and Quentin let the door close behind him before he realized that might be weird— _was it weird?_ Eliot let go of Quentin’s hand, and it was like losing a limb that Quentin hadn’t realized he’d been taking for granted, like they’d finally figured out what the appendix was for and it was this, Eliot’s hand holding his, and they’d removed it too soon.  

Quentin must have made some sort of noise in protest, because Eliot laughed and smiled at him.  

“I’ll be back in a second,” he said, stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door.  

Quentin stripped off his shoes and walked around the room barefoot like it was new to him, taking in the desks and the curtains and the lamps, only one of which was on, giving the light in the room a dim floaty quality.  One of the windows was cracked open, and some of the party sounds drifted up through the air, but mostly it was quiet, the quiet hanging over Quentin like rain clouds in summer, when the rain is warm and getting caught in it is more of an experience than an inconvenience. 

He meant to sit down on his own bed, but he was closer to Eliot’s, and Eliot’s bed looked so much more comfortable, and Quentin folded himself onto it.  The silky sheets felt so nice under his fingertips, the sensations heightened by the alcohol and the overactive nerves in the hand Eliot had been holding, and the fluttering in his stomach.  Quentin waited—for minutes, possibly hours—for Eliot to return. He barely made the decision to lie down on the bed, barely realized he was lying down until it was too late, and he was already letting the cool glide of the sheets touch his arms and neck and face. 

Quentin closed his eyes and imagined how it would be to lie in the bed _with_ Eliot, to feel the warmth of Eliot’s skin mixed with the coolness of the sheets, to breathe in Eliot as he fell asleep, Fantasy Quentin sweeping soft kisses over Eliot as they drifted off to sleep together.  Quentin was so caught up in the imagining, the _wanting_ , that he didn’t hear the bathroom door open and shut again, barely felt the mattress dip as weight was added, only heard Eliot’s soft laugh.  

Quentin opened his eyes.  Eliot was lying on the bed next to him, _close_ to him, their faces inches apart, Eliot leaning his head on one hand with the elbow bent like a model, his other hand hovering in the air like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Eliot had taken off his tie and vest (his jacket was long gone, downstairs) and his shoes and socks. He was looking at Quentin, staring at him, his breathing slightly quicker than Quentin felt it should be.  

“Hi,” Quentin said, because he was drunk, and he was sleepy, and he was in Eliot’s bed, even if he hadn’t entirely intended to be.  

“Hi,” Eliot replied, his voice low.  “You’re in my bed, Q.”

It was an accusation, but he didn’t sound angry—or maybe it wasn’t, because for a moment Drunk Quentin and Fantasy Quentin both agreed that Eliot’s tone was closer to a come on than a ‘get out.’  _Impossible_ , and yet.  

“I am.”  Drunk Quentin was now heavily channeling Fantasy Quentin, results still to come.  Eliot hesitated, and Quentin felt the fantasy giving way to panic. He’d already been through the thought processes, the coming to terms, the _sorry, Quentin_ —he couldn’t do it all again.  He made a quick attempt to backpedal:  “I can leave..?”  

“No.”  Eliot’s voice was firm, and his answer came quickly, then faded into a question.  “Unless you want to?”

“No!”  Quentin’s voice was too loud, _too loud,_ and it gave him away.  It wasn’t sexy or subtle or anything, it was just Quentin, too loud and heading for disappointment.  “Just…your bed is comfier than mine.”

“I’m _sure_ that’s true,” Eliot replied.  His free hand reached out, hesitant (weirdly hesitant for Eliot), and brushed Quentin’s hair away from his face, softly, gently.  Quentin moaned quietly but inappropriately at the contact, at the slow brush of Eliot’s fingers against his face, but he couldn’t do anything about it; Drunk Quentin was driving and he didn’t care about moaning weirdly at his roommate.  His roommate who was still holding his hand against the side of Quentin’s neck.

“What—um—what are you—?”

“Q.”  Eliot had somehow moved closer to Quentin, so that Quentin could feel the heat from Eliot’s breath on his face. “Q, make that sound again.”

Quentin’s immediate response was embarrassment, Eliot was clearly making fun of him.  He would have to laugh it off, or else run away to his own bed, just as soon as he remembered how to stand up.  Except Eliot wasn’t laughing, he wasn’t even smiling. He was looking at Quentin like he was completely serious, looking at Quentin like he’d never looked at him before, and Quentin felt the weight and the heat of Eliot’s gaze, suddenly, like being hit with a supernova.

Eliot stroked his fingers against Quentin’s face, down his neck, and Quentin involuntarily made another noise.  Eliot’s eyes were getting darker, and he was so close that Quentin knew if he leaned forward he could… _no, no, no no no._ He couldn’t kiss Eliot, because that would be the thing that ruins it, regardless of whether Eliot was making fun of him or not, it meant nothing, it was just…Eliot’s version of Drunk Quentin.  It was just asking for the pain, the ‘oh no you misunderstood, you’ve got it wrong.’ S _orry, Quentin, but._   

Quentin let his eyes close—the pull of sleep would be easier and less risky to give into than the pull of Eliot’s orbit.  “El, I’m…sleepy…”

He kept his eyes closed, but he heard Eliot’s quiet laugh.  He fully expected Eliot to get up, to leave the bed and the room and go back down to the party, but the weight on the bed didn’t lift, only shifted, and Quentin could feel Eliot pressing up against him, fitting himself into the angles of Quentin’s body and staying there, still, until they were tangled up, until Eliot was in contact with nearly every part of Quentin.  Drunk Quentin would have found it sexy, but sleepy Quentin found it comforting, the warmth, the touch, the scent and the feel of Eliot and the sheets and the quiet and _everything_.  

“Good night, Q,” Eliot whispered.  

Quentin wanted to say it back, but he was already drifting, and he couldn’t make his mouth respond to his brain quickly enough, and it was too busy thinking _Eliot, Eliot, Eliot_ to be bothered, anyway _._ He might have whispered Eliot’s name back to him, Quentin couldn’t be sure.  He thought he heart Eliot saying something else, but he didn’t quite hear, slipped into sleep with Eliot around him and Eliot’s voice in his ear.

— —

It was morning.  That much was certain, because some really shitty birds were screaming outside of the window.  For a moment, when Quentin opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure where he was, because the light coming in the windows was different than the normal light he woke up to, the angle was weird, and the screaming birds were louder.  Also there was a strange weight pressing across his hips.  

He blinked a few times, and let himself come back to consciousness—and _oh, fuck his head hurt_ .  He was in Eliot’s bed, and Eliot was there beside him, the weight across Quentin’s hips was Eliot’s arm, flung heavily across him as Eliot slept with his face buried into Quentin’s neck.  Quentin’s only option, really, was to freak out, which he did quietly, because he didn’t want to wake up Eliot and also _what the fuck_.  

Quentin tried to remember how to breathe normally, turned onto his side so that his face was parallel with Eliot’s and then tried not to move too much, tried to take the minutes available to him to just watch Eliot’s face as he slept ( _slept!_ ) next to Quentin, not in a creepy way, but in a _he had dreamed of this moment so he should be allowed to savor it even though it was an accident_ way.  

He wasn’t very good at any of this.  Eliot slowly opened his eyes, and Quentin wished he’d been just slightly less obvious about watching him sleep.  Eliot didn’t look upset though, or creeped out, or even surprised. 

Quentin swallowed loudly.  “Hi.”

Eliot smiled sleepily.  “Morning, Q. Stop watching me sleep.”

Quentin flushed ( _so suave, so smooth_ , _Fantasy Quentin would never),_ and started to move away.  It was beginning to come into focus how much of a mistake this was.  “I’m—um—sorry! Sorry…”

Eliot tightened his grip on Quentin’s hip.  “Don’t apologize.” He was waking up more fully now, and Quentin was losing his escape window.  

“What do you want me to do, then?”  Quentin asked, not sure why he asked, not sure he meant to ask it out loud until he already had, until it was hanging in the air.  Fantasy Quentin would have been proud. 

Eliot sucked in his breath.  “Don’t move,” he said, and Quentin could not have moved if he’d wanted to, the words were a command, and Eliot was telling him to _stay in the bed_ and it was too close to fantasy, too close to impossible, and Quentin could barely think around his splitting headache.

Quentin waited, breathing in and out, watching Eliot, and then Eliot was moving towards him, quickly or maybe in slow motion, it was impossible to tell.  Quentin tried not to blink, needing to commit to memory every single second of this, of Eliot coming towards him and cupping his hand around Quentin’s neck and then pressing his lips against Quentin’s; it was all happening in real life, in actual time and space _real life_ , and he refused to forget a single second.  

Eliot was kissing him, lightly, and close-mouthed, but still a kiss.  Quentin’s mind was racing, his pulse was racing, his eyes were closing— _no keep them open_ —and he was leaning forward on the bed, leaning into the kiss into the touch into _Eliot,_ and Eliot was pressing forward into Quentin.  Their lips met uncertainly at first, and then harder, more confidently.  Quentin felt like fireworks were exploding in his stomach, like he was floating with the glitter in the air.

And then, just as suddenly, Eliot was pulling back, lifting his hand off of Quentin’s neck and rolling out of the bed.  Quentin was gasping for air and Eliot was putting on a fresh shirt and giving Quentin a lingering glance, a _wanting_ glance, and then the door opened and closed and he was gone.  

Quentin lay in Eliot’s bed, alone, trying to think and failing miserably.  _What the actual fuck was that?_ His thoughts were a jumbled mess, his eyes blinking through starbursts, his breath coming too quickly, except when he felt like he couldn’t breathe at all.  _Why did Eliot let him sleep there—why did Eliot_ kiss _him_ ? _And why did Eliot leave without saying a word?_

Quentin lay still, unsure if he should move, unsure if Eliot would be back, unsure how long he should wait.  A minute passed, and then five, and then ten, and Eliot didn’t come back and Quentin’s head hurt and he’d never felt more confused in his entire life.  

He ran his fingers across the sheets again, and then got up, leaving Eliot’s bed, and glancing over to his own, cold and un-slept in.  Part of him wanted to lie down in his own bed, close his eyes and try to sleep away the confusion and the hangover, but the other part knew that staying still would only get him more tangled in his thoughts, that thinking of where Eliot was and why he’d gone was futile.  If the kiss had meant anything, he’s still be there, in the room, with Quentin. Quentin lingered by Eliot’s bed a moment longer, glancing hopefully at the door until he was certain Eliot wasn’t going to come back. Sighing, he walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower, wondering how long it would take to wash away either the headache or the confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took me so long to post!
> 
> I'm aiming to post the last chapter very soon!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> same mental health cw as previous chapters. also there is a lot of sex.

Quentin walked downstairs an hour later, cleaner and more awake but otherwise feeling as confused and hurt and on the edge of hopeful as he had before the shower, with the addition of his headache having risen to an angry buzz.  He half-expected to get to the bottom of the stairs and see a completely different place; for the rooms to be ruined, stained with dropped alcohol and air shimmer, trash lying across the floor, the lingering scent of sweat. He didn’t expect it to look exactly the same as normal, clean and put-together, showing no remnants of the party, so indication that there had been a million people here drinking and whatever else, no sign of—of anything.  Quentin thought the house should know that he’d slept in Eliot’s bed, that Eliot had _kissed_ him, it should show _some sign_ that something was different because otherwise how could Quentin know if anything had really changed or not?

But the house didn’t—everything looked exactly the same as it always did.  It was…disappointing. It made the questions flying around Quentin’s mind feel out of place, he got an old feeling, the one that said, maybe you made it all up, maybe none of this is real.  

Margo was sitting on one of the couches, and she motioned him over, pointing towards the coffee table: a cup of coffee, a glass of water, and a handful of aspirin.  

Quentin sat down gratefully next to her and swallowed down a couple of the pills, gulping from the water glass before swapping it for the coffee.  Margo always made good coffee.  

“There should be a spell for hangovers,” Quentin said, flopping back against the couch, his neck resting on the back cushions.  

“Oh, there is,” Margo replied.  She looked like she felt fine, makeup perfect, eyes alert like it hadn’t been...too few hours since they were all at a party.  “But you’ve got to actually preempt it, doesn’t work once the hangover’s already set in.” She smirked. “Guess Eliot forgot to tell you that last night _._ ”

Quentin had never been quite as annoyed by anything as he was by the emphasis she put on ‘last night.’  He wondered, overwhelmingly, through his pounding headache and the warm scent of caffeine, whether Eliot had run straight to Margo this morning.  Quentin could imagine all sorts of conversations, all of them beginning with ‘I made a terrible mistake.’ Quentin could imagine Margo’s face, interested and scandalized: ‘You kissed Quentin?? Why??’ and Eliot shrugging, and then they’d laugh like the villains in a terrible kids show and move on with their fabulous lives, and he’d just be the insert-adjective-here kid in the dorm bed in Eliot’s room. _Sorry, Quentin, but._

_“_ Quentin, are you okay?”  

Margo’s voice cut through Quentin’s thoughts, and she looked as though she’d said his name a couple of times before he’d looked over at her.  She sounded concerned, and less amused than usual. She was looking at him like she’d underestimated how fucked up he was—Quentin had seen that expression on other faces, before, but it never got easier to see. 

“Yeah,” he said, burying his face in the coffee mug again, so he didn’t have to look at her.  

“Cause you look like you’re having a fucking panic attack.”

Quentin snuck a sideways glance.  Margo was leaning forward, attack mode, but she was looking at him completely seriously, like she actually wanted him to talk to her, like she actually gave a crap.  She didn’t look like she was going to laugh at him, or tease him, or make him go sit on another couch that was going to be temporarily named “the moping idiots couch” (which,  hadn’t that been the most fun afternoon he’d ever spent in the Cottage).  

“I—just…”  Quentin realized he probably should put down the coffee cup, but the heat rising up from it onto his face was grounding him.  

“Seriously, what’s wrong?” 

Quentin liked Margo, although he was slightly scared of her, and he liked her better when Eliot was around (which, who was he kidding, he liked everyone and everything better when Eliot was around); but right now she was taking him seriously in a moment when he felt like he would otherwise be drifting around.  Margo was holding a tether and Quentin wanted to be unafraid, and honest.

“What did—um—what did Eliot say to you?  About last night?”

Margo smiled a small smile, breathed, looked relieved.  Apparently, his panic about Eliot didn’t warrant the kind of intense, concerned energy she’d been projecting at him.  But only because she didn’t know that Quentin’s feelings weren’t platonic worry, but something much, much stronger, and better left unnamed.

“I barely even saw Eliot this morning.”  She slapped him lightly on the arm. “Don’t fucking worry me like that!”

Quentin felt like crawling inside himself, so that he didn’t have to react, or ask the next question, the one that pushed the issue.  He didn’t want Margo’s face to fall again, he wanted her to think he was just being silly, that he just wanted to be liked _—_ otherwise he’d have to admit the all-consuming _wanting_ that he felt; that he wanted to be liked specifically by Eliot, and specifically in the bed-sharing-and-kissing kind of way. 

“Look, Margo,” Quentin lowered his voice, “last night…me and Eliot…I mean…when we left the party…” He trailed off, paused— _breathe_. “Did he mention at all, when you barely saw him—um—any regrets?  Or anything..?”

“Oh my god.”  Margo pushed the coffee cup away from Quentin’s face; she looked like her birthday had come early. “I was just giving you shit because you fucking held hands like kindergarteners during the party, I didn’t realize something had actually happened.”

“It was…nothing.” Quentin’s whole body rebelled against that word; in no way had any of it been even remotely nothing, but Quentin had read the playbook of Nights You Ought To Regret, and what the fuck was he supposed to say.  “Just…Eliot kind of kissed me.” He whispered the words, because apparently he was ten years old. “And then…ran away, so…”

He expected Margo to react; he expected surprised outrage—’He fucking what?!’ _—_ or devastating honesty _—’_ yeah he does that with all the boys he doesn’t give a shit about’—or pity—’poor Quentin, let’s find you another roommate who actually likes you.’  He didn’t expect her to look at him impassively and say: “Yeah, well he’s an idiot.”

Quentin wasn’t sure she didn’t mean that the same way his mom did when he was in high school: ‘oh, well, they only don’t like you because they’re idiots, and you’ll find someone better someday.’  Quentin had never loved that logic, but it certainly didn’t apply here, because there was no one better to find, he knew that for sure. 

“Um.  An idiot… _how_? 

“Nope.” Margo stood up from the couch, stretched, and smiled at him in the way that meant ‘hey good talk but now fuck off.’  “You should talk to him, when he gets back.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to—“

“He does, Q,” Margo said, softer.  “Whatever you were going to ask, he does.  He doesn’t regret it. Just…talk to him.”

She walked away, and Quentin took an awkward sip of his cooling coffee, _what the fuck else was he supposed to do_.  Margo was smart, and she knew Eliot better than anyone, and if she said he should talk to him then maybe…maybe he should.  Even if that made every nerve in Quentin’s body light up with anxiety, even if it made his stomach churn and his headache pound back in like it had just been waiting in the wings for this exact moment.  Not like he had any other options, really. 

— — 

Quentin felt like he was floating around the entire day, waiting for Eliot to return from wherever he was, trying to figure out what he was going to say, or do, not daring to leave because what if he left and Eliot came back and he missed the window for…whatever this was.  Quentin hovered in their shared room, he hovered around the couches downstairs, he hovered in the kitchen until the people trying to actually cook yelled at him to leave; his eyes stayed on the door—watching, waiting, hoping. Quentin was not actually good at any of those things. 

Quentin’s mind kept straying back to the night before, to the morning; he couldn’t stop thinking about Eliot’s hand on his face, on his hip, Eliot looking at him without disgust or pity, Eliot leaning into him and pressing their lips together; Quentin kept thinking about the other incident, the painful crushing in his chest when he realized Eliot wasn’t interested in him, when he figured out what he had been expecting the whole time, really.  The two thought threads kept competing in his mind, like Quentin was trying to fit two different jigsaw puzzles into one picture. Something was missing.  

Quentin tried doing work, he tried reading, he tried napping, but his mind wouldn’t settle.  He kept thinking of _Eliot_ , of Eliot’s _oh my god so close and so far_ lips; Quentin needed to commit the kiss to memory, just in case it was the only one he ever got, he needed to run the feeling, the taste, through his memory enough times that it would last him forever.  

When Eliot finally walked through the door of the Cottage, late, Quentin had been imagining him walking in so often that he didn’t react immediately.  He watched Eliot, the _real_ Eliot, not the imagined one, walk over to the bar and pour himself something to drink, downing it quickly, exchanging some secret glance with Margo, and then looking over at Quentin, who was curled up in an alcove with his feet on the cushions, facing the door but from a safe distance. 

Eliot stared at him in a way that Quentin wasn’t sure how to process—Eliot was looking at him like he’d lost something, or found something, like he wasn’t sure, his expression soft but like he was ready to replace it at a moment’s notice with something harder, sharper.  

Eliot put the empty glass down on the bar, harder than necessary, like he was gripping it too tightly; he looked surprised when it made a sound, his eyes moving away from Quentin and then back.  Quentin had never felt more watched, like there wasn’t a room full of people between them; it made his breath catch and his heart race, it made him forget that he was nervous, it made him more nervous than ever.  

When Eliot turned away and walked up the stairs, Quentin couldn’t _not_ follow him.  It wasn’t physically possible for Quentin to stay sitting, pretending to read a book, he needed to chase the expression on Eliot’s face, he needed to chase the memory of the kiss, he needed to steel himself and talk to Eliot and figure out what happened next (if anything happened next).

Eliot was standing in the center of the room when Quentin walked in.  He had started undressing, his shirt partially unbuttoned, and Quentin had a moment of panic—what if Eliot hadn’t been trying to tell him to come upstairs, what if he’d misread the glance and Eliot just wanted to be alone and go to sleep and.  Quentin froze in the doorway, unsure if he wanted to step more fully into the room or leave immediately. He knew that if he turned around and left, that would be it, it would be done, they would never talk and nothing would ever happen and he would go back to being the person he’d been before he’d met Eliot, except that that was a lie, and he could never be that person, not anymore.  He would just be the person who’d found and lost Eliot. The risk was enough to break through his indecision. 

Quentin stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, stood awkwardly with his back against it, trying to make his mouth form words that could approximate his thoughts.  Eliot stopped unbuttoning his shirt, looked at Quentin, alluring and cautious, and it chased all of Quentin’s thoughts away for a second, scattered them like birds. His mouth moved wordlessly.

“Quentin?”

Quentin felt the hard wood of the door under his fingers.  It helped. “We…we need to talk. I think.”

“Okay.”  It meant ‘okay, then say whatever you need to say’; it didn’t mean, ‘okay, I agree.’ 

“Um.”  Quentin took a step forward, Eliot didn’t move.  “Margo said I should, I mean...no, I want to talk anyway, but…”

“ _Margo_ said?”  Eliot’s guard was up, suddenly, and Quentin didn’t know what to do about it; how to act or how to be better than he was, good enough that Eliot wouldn’t put up icy walls, good enough that he would just want Quentin the way Quentin wanted him.  

“No, I mean yes, but.”  Quentin tried to will the frustration, the panic, and _oh no, how to escape this situation_ thoughts that were starting to run over the ones that wanted to talk to Eliot.  “ _I want_ to talk.  We need to…talk. About last night and—um—and this morning…”

Eliot frowned, his eyes flitting around the room, settling anywhere but Quentin’s face, disappointed, maybe, or just annoyed.  “Look, Q, it’s fine, you’re allowed to not want…you’re allowed to ask me to pretend nothing happened.”

Quentin’s mind went blank, suddenly, like he had accidentally leaned on the delete key and deleted all of the words he’d had stored up, ones that he was now frantically trying to recover.  He blinked. He was _allowed_? What the fuck was Eliot talking about?  Quentin had been working up to confessions, to declarations, and now he was just blank and confused, and possibly a little bit offended.  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

It was Eliot’s turn to blink, pausing, his eyes finally landing on Quentin’s face.  There was a question written on his face, in his eyes, that Quentin hadn’t been expecting; some uncertainty lying beneath the facade of surety Eliot put on.  

“You don’t want to pretend nothing happened?”  He sounded genuinely confused, and Quentin almost laughed, purely out of surprise.  He took another step forward, lessening the gap between them slowly.  

“Do you?” Quentin asked, and this was it.  This was the point where Eliot had to walk away, had to turn, ashamed or sympathetic, and tell him the truth.  _Sorry, Quentin, but._   

Quentin waited for it, anticipating the blow, couching himself for the disappointment, trying to figure out how to survive the ending of something that almost was _._   But Eliot didn’t say _sorry, Quentin, but_.  He didn’t say anything, for a long moment, and then he stepped towards Quentin, closing the gap between them entirely.  

“No, I don’t.”

Quentin almost backed up, but he couldn’t, paralyzed by their closeness, by the hope rising up against the hurt and fear and confusion boiling inside him.  His voice was quiet, breathy and uncertain. “Then why did you leave? If you don’t regret...what happened?”

Eliot’s eyes were locked on Quentin’s now, and he looked like he was working up to saying...something.  It would have been so easy for Eliot to apologize, and make excuses, and let him down easily and instead...Quentin’s hope was growing in spite of his best attempts to stem it. 

Eliot took a deep breath, shaking his head.  “I crossed a line, and I shouldn’t have. You just looked so perfect this morning.  But it wasn’t what I planned, I got caught in a moment and I wanted to kiss you so much and...I’m not good at this part, Q.”  He looked so uncomfortable that Quentin almost wanted to start reassuring him, like he wasn’t the one who’d run away. Eliot’s voice went quieter.  “I got scared, so I left.”

Quentin blinked, trying to make sense of Eliot’s words—his mind kept latching on “perfect” and “wanted” and “scared” without allowing him to hear the full sentence.  Quentin felt like the room was spinning around him, around him and Eliot. Eliot had wanted to kiss him. Eliot had woken up and wanted to kiss him and. It occurred suddenly to Quentin that everything Eliot had said was in past tense.  

Quentin swallowed, watching Eliot’s eyes track the movement.  “Do you...still...want to kiss me?”   

Eliot hesitated, silent, for only a moment, and then he moved too quick for Quentin to follow or to anticipate.  Eliot reached out, his hand finding the back of Quentin’s neck, supportive, strong, pulling Quentin in, pressing their lips together like earlier, but more needy, more desperate, like he was asking a question instead of answering.  

Quentin stood still for a moment, and he could feel Eliot misinterpreting his stillness, reading it as not wanting as opposed to _wanting so much his brain was overloading_ . He could feel Eliot starting to pull back, and Quentin willed his body into action, surging towards Eliot, pressing their bodies together, wrapping his arms around Eliot and thrusting his hips forward in a really embarrassing and probably pushy way, his lips moving harder against Eliot’s.  Eliot breathed in sharply, and then he was kissing Quentin again, his mouth open and his breath hot against Quentin’s mouth. Quentin had spent months dreaming about kissing Eliot like this, but the fantasy fell far short of actually kissing Eliot, of feeling Eliot’s tongue in his mouth, of holding Eliot tightly.  This wasn’t supposed to be possible, this was just a fantasy—Quentin was Quentin and Eliot was _Eliot_. 

Quentin pulled back slightly, just enough to breathe and to look into Eliot’s eyes, searching them for a hint of pity or regret; Eliot stared back, his eyes dark and intense, his mouth slightly open, watching Quentin.  Quentin was breathing hard and so was Eliot, _and Eliot wasn’t pulling away._

“You…want this?” Quentin whispered, because he had to ask, and he couldn’t ask the real question—do you want _me?_

Eliot smiled, and it loosened a part of Quentin he hadn’t even realized had been tense.  “I want _you_ , Q,” he whispered back, “if you want me _?_ ”

Quentin laughed, actually laughed, because what the fuck kind of question was that.  He nodded, and his laugh caught in his throat as Eliot surged forward again. This time, the kisses felt freer, and Quentin let himself yield to the deeper emotions he still couldn’t admit to out loud, the ones resting just below the surface.  Quentin silently acknowledged that he had never felt some of the things he was feeling right now, with Eliot kissing him. He fumbled with the remaining buttons on Eliot’s shirt, pleased when it fell to the floor and he could stroke his fingers across Eliot’s bare chest.  

Eliot shivered at the contact and made a soft sound that cut through all of Quentin’s thoughts, all of his acknowledgement of what he was feeling forgotten under the distraction of Eliot’s mouth, Eliot’s skin, the pressure of what was definitely Eliot’s hardening cock against his hip.  Quentin almost wanted to stop, to pause everything, to have a moment to commit this image, this feeling to memory. _Almost._

Eliot steered Quentin towards his bed, and Quentin let Eliot back him up against it so he had no choice but to sit down.  Eliot pulled away, breaking their kisses for a moment to drag Quentin’s t-shirt over his head, and he barely even laughed when Quentin got tangled in it, trying to get it off himself too quickly.  

Eliot climbed onto the bed, straddling Quentin and pushing him back until they were both lying down, bodies pressed against each other, breathing in tandem.  The silky sheets were cold against his back and Eliot was warm above him; Quentin felt the sensations overwhelm him, felt himself coming apart. Eliot kissed him deeply, leaning up, his fingers finding and lingering on the button to Quentin’s jeans.  Eliot waited, and Quentin resisted the strong urge to buck his hips as incentive for him to unbutton it.  

“Tell me you want this,” Eliot said breathily, his body infuriatingly still.  

“Yes.  Fuck, yes.”  Quentin’s voice sounded high and needy, and Eliot’s face lit up with desire.  He wasn’t sexy and collected Fantasy Quentin, but Eliot was looking at him like actual Quentin was _his_ fantasy. 

Eliot rolled his hips down onto Quentin ( _holy fuck_ ) before pulling away and finally popping the button open.  Moving deftly to lie by his side, Eliot pulled Quentin’s jeans and boxers down his thighs, watching as Quentin shimmied out of them.  He was now painfully aware that he was completely naked and Eliot was still essentially half-dressed. Eliot’s eyes swept up and down his body, lingering on his achingly hard cock, and Quentin felt a shiver run through him.  

Moaning softly, Eliot pressed his hand against the side of Quentin’s neck, pulling him back into a kiss, his thumb rubbing circles from his collarbone down his chest.  His touch was soft but insistent, lingering at Quentin’s nipples and then his hips, holding him down against the bed as Quentin attempted to thrust his hips up. He whimpered against Eliot’s lips, and Eliot groaned.

“You make the best sounds,” Eliot growled.

He moved his mouth away from Quentin’s, kissing a path across his neck, sucking at a sensitive spot just under his ear.  It was overwhelming, it was not nearly enough. Quentin tried to move his hips again, and this time Eliot allowed it, moving his hand away from Quentin’s hip and ghosting over his cock before teasing the tip with his fingers.  Quentin fisted his hand in the sheets—he’d never wanted to be touched so badly, every thought erased from his mind except for the blind need for Eliot to touch him, and to touch Eliot. Without looking, Quentin reached for the buttons on Eliot’s pants, but the touch of Eliot’s fingers and the _heat-pain-pleasure_ of Eliot sucking beneath his ear was distracting.  Quentin moaned outright, chasing Eliot’s touch with his hips and grabbing his waist instead, pulling him in closer.  

Eliot smiled against Quentin’s neck as he let Quentin pull him— _oh wow, that was its own special brand of sexy_ —and then wrapped his hand fully around Quentin’s cock.  He closed his eyes, focusing only on the hand moving slowly but firmly up and down the shaft of his cock, pressing on the sensitive spot near the head of it, sending waves of pleasure through him.  Quentin moaned louder as Eliot’s grip tightened; he saw sparks in front of his eyes, like the air was still full of glitter.  

“Fuck, Q.”

Encouraged by the fact that Eliot seemed to like it, Quentin moaned again; he would have done anything to keep Eliot talking to him and saying his name in that completely wrecked tone.  Eliot’s lips moved away from his neck and he took his hands off Quentin, who opened his eyes to see Eliot crawling down the bed, his face flushed and a smile playing across his lips. _Oh my god this is not a dream this is real oh fuck, Eliot._ The thought echoed through Quentin’s head as  he watched Eliot (finally) take off his pants and position himself between Quentin’s legs, completely naked.  Quentin thought he had fallen apart seeing Eliot in his tiny swimsuit, but this was, _fuck_ , this was so much better than seeing an outline through fabric, this was Eliot’s cock, perfect and _hard,_ and Quentin nearly gasped at the size of it. 

Eliot made a pleased sound low in his throat as Quentin hungrily gazed at  his body, his cock. Quentin pulled his eyes back to Eliot’s face, still amazed that he was actually here, that he was allowed to look at Eliot like this, that Eliot wanted him to.  They eyed each other for a moment, Eliot licking his lips, looking like he was struggling to keep himself under control as much as Quentin was. 

“Fuck,” Quentin whispered, awed, and Eliot laughed breathily. 

Keeping his eyes locked on Quentin’s, Eliot wrapped his hand around the base of Quentin’s cock, lowered his mouth slowly, ( _fuck, the anticipation was wrecking him)_ and licked gently around the tip, pressing his tongue against the most sensitive spots.  Quentin was already breathing hard, energy coiling in his stomach, in his groin, and the sound he made when Eliot actually wrapped his mouth around Quentin’s cock was ungodly and loud as fuck—Quentin thought vaguely about sound dampening spells but _fuck_ he couldn’t care about anything but the feel of Eliot sucking his cock, moving his tongue over it with the exact right amount of pressure and suction; Quentin flexed his fingers, but couldn’t have managed the spell even if he’d really wanted to, and he definitely couldn’t be quiet.

Eliot moaned around his cock, the vibrations intensifying everything, and Quentin was drowning in the heat of Eliot’s mouth, the touch of Eliot’s tongue, the roughness of Eliot’s hand stroking up from the base of his cock in time with the motion of his mouth.  Quentin couldn’t take his eyes off Eliot; all of his fantasies were nothing compared to the actual sight of Eliot sucking his cock. He looked like a fucking wet dream, his eyes so dark with arousal, and Quentin couldn’t help bucking his hips up into Eliot’s mouth, pushing himself deeper, feeling the sensations spread from his cock to every nerve in his body.  

“Fuck, El, I’m gonna—” Quentin’s voice cracked, pressure building, peaking higher with every hot swipe of Eliot’s tongue, he couldn’t hold out much longer.  The idea of coming like this, into Eliot’s mouth, or _fuck_ , even onto Eliot’s skin, was almost enough to completely push him over the edge, but as he was reaching the final oh-fuck-hip-jerking-ass-clenching moment, Eliot pulled his mouth away, ignoring Quentin’s whine of protest, climbing up his body and pushing his tongue into Quentin’s mouth instead.  Quentin could vaguely taste his own precome—he felt dirty, but it was also kind of a turn-on, his cock throbbing painfully, longing for the release that Eliot’s mouth had come so close to providing. 

“Not yet, okay?” Eliot breathed. “I want—”

Eliot cut himself off like the thought was too much for him to say aloud and thrust downwards, driving his cock against Quentin’s hip, his skin providing some of the friction Quentin was longing for.  Turning his moan into Eliot’s name, Quentin could feel Eliot’s cock twitching against Quentin’s skin, his movements stuttering in response.

Smirking, Eliot repositioned himself between Quentin’s legs, the tip of his cock just nudging against the skin between Quentin’s balls and his ass, close enough that it made Quentin ache with wanting.  

He meant to ask what Eliot wanted, but the distraction of Eliot’s cock knocked the thought from his head and instead he just said, “Fuck me.”  

Eliot laughed that low desperate laugh again.  “Is that a request?” He rolled his hips, testing, driving his cock against Quentin and making him moan desperately.

“It’s…a fucking…command,” Quentin replied breathlessly, and Eliot raised an eyebrow, not bothering to hide his amusement.  This wasn’t suave Fantasy Quentin, not even a little, but it didn’t matter now, not when all Quentin could care about was getting Eliot to stop teasing and actually put his cock inside of him. 

Eliot pulled away from Quentin.  Quentin whined as their skin contact was broken, but Eliot stopped him with a look and did a complicated tut that made his fingers glisten. 

“Lube spell,” Eliot whispered, leaning down again to press his mouth against Quentin’s as his fingers strayed down past their cocks, one hand pushing Quentin’s legs wide.  Every spot on his skin that Eliot touched lit up, like sparks traveling across Quentin’s body, and his muscles tightened in anticipation as Eliot grazed his fingertip against Quentin’s ass.

Quentin gasped into Eliot’s mouth as his finger eased into Quentin, gentle but insistent, not teasing any longer, and Eliot hummed appreciatively.  He pulled back, looking for leverage, and gave Quentin a look full of want, and need, and heat. Quentin’s toes curled against the sheets as Eliot pressed his finger in deeper.  One finger, then two, stretching Quentin open and curling up, finding that spot that made Quentin’s cock jump and his whole body tingle with pleasure, flooding him with overwhelming waves of _oh my god_.  

Quentin’s lips formed Eliot’s name over and over, and Eliot responded by adding another finger, opening Quentin up until he was satisfied it was enough, until Quentin was a puddle of nerves and needs and wants and aches and his cock was harder than he’d ever felt it before.  Eliot lined himself up, pushing Quentin’s legs out wider, and met Quentin’s eyes for a last confirmation before leaning forward and pushing himself into Quentin. 

And _fuck,_ Quentin was ready but Eliot was big; he gripped Quentin’s hips and pressed into him in small jerks, watching Quentin’s reactions carefully.  It felt like years to Quentin, with his hand gripping the sheets and his cock leaking precome onto his stomach and Eliot hovering above him biting his lip. He fought the urge to grab Eliot with his legs and pull him forward, until finally Eliot pushed all the way inside him and Quentin felt overwhelmed and _full_ and powerful.  Eliot thrust into him slowly, rolling his hips and breathing out little moans, keeping his eyes on Quentin’s face in a way that felt unnerving but also made Quentin feel _seen_ .  Eliot was watching _him_ , Eliot wanted _him_ , specifically—not just a fuck, but _Quentin_ , and not suave Fantasy Quentin but actual Quentin, and that was remarkable. 

“Fuck, Q, you’re…amazing,” Eliot said, leaning forward to press kisses on every part of Quentin that he could reach.  Quentin shuddered and wrapped his hands around Eliot’s back, pulling himself up briefly, their mouths crashing together as Eliot’s hips stuttered forward and his thrusts became a little less controlled.  

Quentin let himself fall back, let himself float out of his own head, releasing himself from the nagging worries still in the back of his mind and focusing only on _Eliot_ , on Eliot’s mouth, on Eliot’s eyes, on Eliot’s cock _(fuck)_.  He didn’t know if he was babbling words or moaning or saying Eliot’s name.  Each thrust crashed into him and echoed through his body, the pressure building up and Quentin’s cock throbbing so much that he couldn’t stand it, and without even thinking about it he reached down to touch himself.  The contact, even of his own hand, was a shock and a relief, even more so when Eliot let go of his grip on one of Quentin’s hips to put his own hand on Quentin’s cock, moving in time with his thrusts. The air spun with glitter over Quentin’s eyes, and he couldn’t tell if the sparkling flashes were real or in his mind; bursts of emotion flared up under Eliot’s touches, pushing down any rational thoughts.  

His head fell back against the mattress, his back arching as Eliot pulled himself up to gain better leverage.  Quentin thought he’d been overwhelmed before, but now Eliot was truly fucking him, breathing hard and thrusting with abandon.  Quentin lifted his eyes, watching the sweat bead on Eliot’s chest beautifully, and this time it was _his_ , he could touch Eliot, rake his fingers lightly across Eliot’s skin and make him groan out exquisite noises and moans that sounded like “Q.” 

“Fuck, Q, I’m—going—” Eliot’s warning died in his throat, but Quentin understood, his own climax crashing unstoppably towards him. 

Eliot’s hips snapped faster, his hand becoming rougher on Quentin’s cock, and Quentin stared into Eliot’s face—his eyes wide, his cheeks flushed, his mouth open—and it was too much, better than his fantasies, better than anything Quentin could have imagined.  With a shout, Quentin came hard onto Eliot’s hand and his own stomach, riding out the waves of his orgasm as Eliot drove his hips forward into Quentin a final time.

Quentin kept his eyes on Eliot as he came, shaking slightly and breathing heavily and looking completely beautiful and blissed.  He stayed still for a moment, recovering, then pulled out of Quentin gently and lunged forward to kiss him. It wasn’t a filthy, needy kiss, it was quiet and slow and sort of _loving_ and Quentin sighed, letting himself come down, letting himself relax into Eliot.

Too soon, Eliot pulled away, backing off the bed towards the bathroom, and Quentin’s thoughts raced into panic for a moment ( _oh fuck he’s running again),_ but in seconds he was back with a wet cloth, cleaning himself and then Quentin off before placing the cloth gently on his nightstand and lying back on the bed, reaching out and pulling Quentin towards him.  Quentin lay with his head was on Eliot’s chest, the combination of Eliot’s warm skin and the somehow still cool sheets dancing along his nerves. 

“That was…” Quentin struggled for a word.

“Fucking amazing,” Eliot finished, sighing, and Quentin thought this might be the only time he’d actually heard someone call sex with him amazing and not suspected that it was one thousand percent hyperbole.  He couldn’t even find the words to describe how he felt about sex with Eliot, but amazing wasn’t even close; maybe transcendent, or life-changing. Quentin ran his fingers along Eliot’s side, eliciting little humming noises that he didn’t think he could ever get tired of.

_Oh._  It occurred to Quentin, suddenly, that they hadn’t _really_ talked about any of this, they’d established the wanting part, but one fantastic orgasm later, he still didn’t really know where they stood.  He was sleepy now, and he wanted to keep himself pressed against Eliot, wanted to keep Eliot’s arm around him, Eliot’s hand stroking his hair, Eliot’s lips pressing soft kisses to his forehead.  But he didn’t want to fall asleep and wake up to an empty bed, and never talk about it again. 

“So that...will that, um, happen again?” Quentin was trying for nonchalant, like this huge, amazing thing hadn’t just happened, but he could hear the unsteadiness in his voice. He wished he had asked for a sip from Eliot’s flask before starting this conversation, or possibly insisted they both put on some clothes.

Eliot laughed, quietly, his chest vibrating under Quentin’s cheek. “I mean, I need a little recovery time but...”

Quentin wanted to laugh, let the joke be the end of it for now, but instead it was pressing in between them, spinning through his mind, making him start to tense up.  He tried to focus on the feel of the cool slide of the sheets, the warmth of Eliot against his skin.

“That’s…not what I meant.”  

Eliot sighed, pressing his lips against the top of Quentin’s head, speaking quietly into his hair.  “I know.”

Quentin waited for Eliot to say something else, but he didn’t, the moment stretching empty and quiet around them.  He felt his panic start to rise, the sensation stronger than the physical ones he’d been trying to use to ground himself; he could feel his breath coming quicker and he started to feel like he was looking at the bed from far away, and he wanted to get up and leave—or crawl back to his own tiny bed—and pretend he wasn’t afraid of what Eliot would say next.  As if he could just leave, and move on, when he could barely _breathe_.  

Quentin pulled himself away from Eliot, reluctantly, but as soon as he had some space, some air between them, he felt relieved, like this was how it should be; he shouldn’t be in Eliot’s arms when Eliot lets him down, he should keep his distance, he should brace himself.  Eliot’s eyes tracked him as he sat up, swiveling around so they were facing each other more easily.  

Eliot sighed, rubbed absently at a spot above his eye, like he had a headache, and repositioned himself so he was almost sitting, his back curved against the headboard.  Quentin hated how fucking good Eliot looked like this. “I’m not good at this part.”

Quentin’s panic was rising like steam, filling up the air around him.  He didn’t want this to be it, he didn’t want to have to move on, he didn’t want to have to avoid Eliot, or find another magical school, since everything here was tinged with Eliot for him now.

“I just…” Quentin was grasping at words like falling snowflakes—they kept slipping past him, leaving him cold and quiet.  “I want. Look, it could be casual, or whatever, right? Just as long as we can be something…” He let the last word trail off, hearing how pathetic it sounded.  _Sorry, Quentin, but._

Eliot’s eyes flicked away from Quentin, staring off into the room at nothing, then coming back slowly.  Eliot looked like he was making a decision, or deciding what words to use, at least. Quentin wondered how many other magic schools there even _were_.  Eliot reached out for Quentin’s hand, and Quentin gave it to him, unable to deny Eliot anything he wanted, and was both comforted and saddened by the renewed contact, by Eliot’s thumb swiping absently over Quentin’s knuckles.

“Listen, Q, I’m usually the first one to say fuck emotions ‘cause they’re hard.”  He paused, took a breath. “But do _you want_ this to be casual?”

Quentin felt his hopes falling down around him, because what option could there possibly be, if Eliot was tactfully declining the idea of even something casual.  He let out a breath, quiet, defeated, stared down at his lap. “No.”

“Then we’ll just have to try doing it for real.”

Quentin’s head shot up, meeting Eliot’s eyes—he had to be joking, there had to be some buried joke, some double meaning that invalidated what it _sounded_ like he was saying.  Eliot wasn’t laughing though, he wasn’t even smiling.  He was staring at Quentin with an expression that was completely serious, bordering on nervous; he was staring at Quentin like he was waiting, like Eliot had asked something of _him_ , instead of the other way around.  

“You…really?”  Quentin felt hope bubbling up again, in spite of his better instincts.  

Eliot nodded, still not breaking the intense eye contact, a tiny smile playing on his lips, his thumb still stroking the back of Quentin’s hand.  A moment, then Eliot pulled himself forward with Quentin’s hand, leaning into Quentin and kissing him, the kind of kiss that only showed up at the end of romance movies, shattering the box Quentin had started building around himself.  After a moment, Eliot broke the kiss gently and pulled away, just a little bit. 

“Quentin, I don’t know how you missed this, but you’re not a one-off fuck.  You’re a lot more.” Eliot looked ready to regret saying anything, ready to run, or at least walk it back, but Quentin didn’t let him, just pulled him forward into another kiss, feeling Eliot smile against his lips. 

“Besides,” Eliot said, his words brushing soft air against Quentin’s mouth, “we already live together.”

Quentin laughed, then a new source of panic started to creep in.  “I can try to find another room, if it’ll be too much pressure to be together all the time.”  Quentin felt earnest about it, but he had disappointment waiting in the wings, just in case Eliot said yes. 

“Q, if you think I want you to _leave_ , you’re really not listening.”

Quentin smiled, the panic receding, leaving him with just himself, and Eliot, and the feelings swimming inside him that he wanted to yell from the rooftops.  “Maybe you’ll have to tell me again.”

Eliot grinned, and surged forward, pushing Quentin down on the bed on his back, again, hovering over him, beautiful and powerful and _Quentin’s_.  Eliot smoothed some of Quentin’s hair away from his face with his free hand, and the tiny gesture felt to Quentin like the beginning of a sentence he had already started writing, one that they would read to each other in touches and glances, one that Quentin felt like he had been waiting for his entire life.  

Eliot leaned down to kiss him, more passionately, more certain, and Quentin let himself melt into Eliot’s touch, let Eliot carry him away again, not even stopping to wonder at the fact that he suddenly wasn’t afraid of falling. 

— —

When Quentin stepped into the cottage the next day, it was suspiciously quiet.  It took him only a few seconds to realize that he couldn’t hear Margo or Eliot, even though he knew both of them tended to hang around when they didn’t have classes (not that Quentin had memorized Eliot’s schedule, nope, not at all).  

He swept past the people sitting downstairs in the common space and walked upstairs towards his and Eliot’s room, feeling an uncomfortable mixture of nervous and excited.  Quentin had woken up several times the night before with panic rising through his chest into his throat, but each time Eliot had still been there, and he’d wrapped his arms around Quentin, and pressed sleepy kisses to every spot he could reach, easing Quentin back to sleep with Eliot’s body pressed against him reassuringly.  And then when he’d had to get up, Eliot had insisted on joining him in the shower, which Quentin couldn’t say no to, even if it had made him incredibly late for class. Not that it hadn’t been worth it.

Quentin stopped in front of the door, almost knocked, which was ridiculous, because he’d been living there long enough that he should feel comfortable walking in.  Except some part of him had been expecting the door to be open, and Eliot to be waiting for him, and the closed door felt like it carried meaning, and Quentin should allow it to turn him away, because it was for the best.  He shook his head, pushing away the thoughts, and opened the door. 

The first thing Quentin noticed was the confetti, because it was sparkly and also pouring down from the ceiling like rain, both of which made it hard to ignore.  The second thing was Eliot sitting on the edge of his bed; he was coated in confetti and clearly incredibly annoyed, but his eyes were on Quentin, and they held the beginnings of a smile he was fighting.  Quentin didn’t think he’d ever get tired of looking at Eliot looking at him, smiling.  

The confetti flood ended after a few minutes, and Quentin realized Margo was also in the room, standing next to Eliot and looking exceptionally pleased with herself.  

“Congratulations, Coldwater!” she said, beaming alternately at him and Eliot.  

“Look, Q,” Eliot said with fake enthusiasm, “she’s given us the world’s most annoying to clean up present.”

He gestured around the room, every surface of which was covered in glittery confetti pieces.  Quentin brushed some confetti out of his hair, examining it more closely; some of it was just abstractly shaped pieces of glittery paper, and some of it was definitely shaped like something…

“Are these…dicks?”  Quentin asked, alarmed, as he studied the tiny, glittery, very clearly dick-shaped confetti, complete with varying anatomical features between pieces. 

Margo grinned.  “Appropriate, right?”

“Okay.”  Eliot stood up, dragging Margo with him towards the door.  “Thanks for the cock-fetti, now it’s time to leave.”

Margo laughed but let him push her out into the hallway.  “Hey, Quentin, _dampening spell!”_ she called back as she walked away, and Quentin felt himself flush even though he had to admit he felt kind of proud that everyone had heard them the night before, especially if Margo thought it merited confetti.

Eliot brushed some more confetti off of Quentin’s hair and shoulders, and then put one of his hands on Quentin’s hip and the other on the back of his neck, pulling Quentin in for a kiss that filled Quentin with longing at the same time as it made him feel complete and satisfied.  Too soon, Eliot pulled away, leaving Quentin’s lips buzzing pleasantly.  

Something occurred to Quentin, abruptly.  “So, um, was Margo just waiting for this to happen? How did she..?”

“Know?”  Eliot cut in, running his thumb distractingly across Quentin’s jawbone, beneath his ear.  “She said it was obvious. She told me she invented this whole room shortage thing just to make us spend time together.” 

Eliot looked nervous when he said the last part, like Quentin was going to be upset about it, but Quentin just started laughing, devolving into the kind of uncontrollable giggles that he really didn’t want to be showcasing in front of Eliot quite yet, but it was just. so. ridiculous.  He really needed to thank Margo the next time he saw her.   

“You’re not upset, right?”  Eliot asked, holding his breath, and it was such a ridiculous question it made Quentin laugh harder.  

“Not. At. All.” Quentin said, getting his giggles under control, and Eliot finally exhaled.  “We should bake her a cake.”

“Or fill her room with confetti,” Eliot muttered, but he was smiling.  

Quentin leaned forward and kissed Eliot, again, trying to be the reassuring one, this time, trying to communicate how glad he was about this, about them, with just the pressure from his lips and his tongue, and the weight of his hands on Eliot’s back.  He could feel Eliot relaxing, and it made Quentin want nothing more than to stand there kissing him for hours, and then to throw Eliot down on the bed and give everyone something to listen to again tonight.

Quentin realized he was still holding his bag, and leaned aside to put it down, only realizing as he went to drop it in its normal spot that the tiny, terrible bed was gone.  Apparently, Margo’s game only lasted until they got together, and the idea of living somewhere else, now, of packing up and going to some strange room elsewhere, was overwhelmingly terrible.  

“My—um—bed is gone?”  He tried to sound casual, but he was almost entirely sure he was missing that mark by about a million miles.  “Am I moving out?”

Eliot pulled his chin back so they were facing each other again, instead of Quentin staring panicked at an empty wall. 

“I hope not,” Eliot said, and Quentin’s stomach fluttered. “Margo had to return it to wherever she stole it from.”  He paused. “But my bed is more than big enough for both of us, so...”

Quentin smiled, the stress dissipating.  Eliot wanted him there. Eliot wanted him _living_ there, even though there were empty rooms, and he was used to sleeping alone, Eliot wanted _Quentin_ sleeping in his bed every night.  It was better than he could have imagined, the feeling of being wanted. 

“Prove it,” Quentin said, grinning, watching Eliot’s face light up as he took the obvious hint.  And if Quentin conveniently forgot the dampening spell again in the fervor that overtook him as Eliot pushed him backwards onto the bed ( _their_ bed, he thought giddily), well, that was hardly his fault. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took me so long to post, and I hope it lives up to the wait <3

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> you can find me [here on tumblr](https://margosfairyeye.tumblr.com) come say hi :) 
> 
> I'll be posting the remaining chapters this week!


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